Exposed: 'new' Dick Smith hard drive full of pirated movies

Asher Moses -Dec 22, 2011

Filimmaker Darryl Mason, left, with The Angels singer Dave Gleeson.

Sydneysider Darryl Mason bought a "new" portable hard drive from Dick Smith only to find that it was filled with pirated movies and potentially contained malware that has ruined crucial footage for his documentary.

The retailer has since admitted that it sells second hand hard drives as new, but in this instance forgot to wipe it clean.

The Minister for Fair Trading, Anthony Roberts, said he was "very concerned" with Dick Smith's actions and that the retailer may be liable for compensation under Australian consumer laws.

Mason bought the $129 Seagate 1.5 terabyte (TB) drive from the Dick Smith Marrickville store to back up footage for a documentary he is making about the hard rock band The Angels.

He has been shooting their recording sessions and gigs over the last six month since the band replaced its lead singer with Dave Gleeson, formerly of the Screaming Jets. He hopes to get the film out to coincide with the band's new album in January.

But when Mason plugged the drive in to his laptop he found that despite the drive saying 1.5TB on the back, it was in fact just a fraction of that size at 30GB. Also, it was filled with pirated movies including Toy Story, Limitless and others.

Mason's tweets about the matter caught Dick Smith's attention and the retailer immediately sent its store manager to his house with a replacement drive.

"They didn't say why it would be filled with pirated movies, avoided those answers, but they were very apologetic," he said.

But later Mason tried to open some of the video footage on his laptop only to find that it had been corrupted. He had recycled camera memory cards while shooting so about six hours of his footage existed solely on the hard drive of the laptop.

"I feel sick," Mason said.

Before the corrupted files had been revealed, Dick Smith, when asked why pirated movies would be on a purported new hard drive, appeared to admit it sold returned hard drives as new.

"Following an investigation it has been confirmed that this unit was in fact returned from a previous customer who had downloaded nine movies on to it," Dick Smith said.

"We do have procedures in place to thoroughly check and restore settings on all units when they are returned but on this occasion the process wasn't implemented."

Mason said a Dick Smith staff member also separately told him that it had a regular practice of selling returned drives as new.

The retailer said its operations team was "revisiting the current processes for any further improvements" and implementing training programs within its team to ensure similar incidents didn't happen in future.

Mason, who purposely kept his laptop disconnected from the net to avoid viruses, said he had paid for a new hard drive, not a second hand one.

"To me, that's an amazing thing to admit, that they take returned drives, wipe them and then sell them as new," Mason said.

"And if their statement is true, why is the drive only 30GB? Instead of 1.5TB?"

Asked whether he could be sure that the Dick Smith hard drive caused the corrupted files, he said it would have to be a "hell of a coincidence" to suddenly have corrupted files on a laptop that's not connected to the internet and has never had anything plugged into it except a video camera.

"I have a friend who's coming to have a look tomorrow, reckons he can fix the corrupted file. I think he just said that so I'd calm down," Mason said last night.

The Minister for Fair Trading, Anthony Roberts, said under Australian Consumer Law (ACL) traders could not mislead consumers about the nature of goods or services.

"I'd be very concerned if Dick Smith are selling used goods as new and not disclosing this to consumers," he said.

He added that consumers could claim compensation for "consequential losses" where a supplier fails to meet consumer guarantees.

"In this instance, if the consumer doesn't get a satisfactory outcome from the retailer, Fair Trading can help negotiate a successful outcome as well as investigate any potential breaches of the ACL."

Ingrid Just, spokeswoman for consumer group Choice, said disclosure was "critical".

"If a person is paying for a refurbished item they should be told this up front - prior to purchase," she said.

"Additionally when it comes to refurbished technology there are potential privacy issues if details have not been wiped, not to mention the possibility for your hardware or software to become corrupted as a result of malware."

Mason still hopes he will be able to get his documentary out on time. He said he was in the process of backing up his remaining footage to the replacement drive but worried they, like his other files, would get corrupted.

"Are more files being corrupted right now? Lost forever? Absolutely sickening feeling," said Mason.

"At least with 16mm, or film cameras of any kind, you had something solid in your hands. Now the information is invisible and obviously vulnerable as well."